Google Ads Owns 5% of Your Market. Facebook Ads Owns the Other 95%.
The question Australian business owners keep asking is "Should I run Google Ads or Facebook Ads?" But the question itself reveals a misunderstanding about what these platforms actually do and who they reach.
Professor John Dawes at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute published research showing that only about 5% of potential buyers are actively in-market at any given time. The other 95% have no immediate need for your service. They will eventually. Just not today.
Google Ads captures the 5%. Facebook Ads builds familiarity with the 95%. These are not competing strategies. They are different tools aimed at entirely different groups of people at entirely different stages of readiness.
Once you see it this way, the "which platform" debate dissolves. The real question becomes: can you afford to ignore 95% of your future customers?
The 95:5 rule changes how you think about both platforms
Dawes' research, originally validated in B2B contexts but applicable across categories, shows that marketers cannot move buyers in-market. Buyers move themselves in-market based on their own needs, timelines, and triggers. A plumber cannot make someone's hot water system fail sooner. An accountant cannot make tax season arrive faster.
This has a direct implication for platform choice.
Google Search Ads are brilliant at the moment of need. Someone types "emergency plumber near me" and your ad appears. That person is in the 5%. They have an active problem and they are looking for a solution right now. Google's job is to make you findable at that exact moment. Facebook and Meta Ads reach people scrolling through their feed with no active purchase intent. They are in the 95%. They do not need you today. But when they eventually do need you, the brand that has appeared in their feed repeatedly over the preceding months is the one that comes to mind first.Byron Sharp calls this mental availability: the propensity of your brand to be noticed or thought of in buying situations. It is the single strongest predictor of market share growth, validated across 130+ brands and 13+ product categories.
Google Ads builds physical availability (being easy to find). Facebook Ads builds mental availability (being easy to think of). You need both. The sequence depends on your cash flow.
Why starting with Google still makes sense for most Australian SMEs
If you need revenue within 90 days, Google Ads is the correct starting point. The maths are straightforward.
WordStream's 2026 benchmarks show overall average cost per lead has dropped to $66.69 USD across industries. Australian service businesses typically see cost per lead between $40 and $150 AUD depending on category and location, with less competitive markets running 10-15% lower than Sydney benchmarks.A properly structured Google Ads campaign targeting high-intent searches can produce leads from week two. You learn your economics quickly: what a lead costs, what percentage convert to paying clients, and what your true cost per acquisition is. That data is the foundation for every decision that follows.
The trap is staying there permanently.
The ceiling you hit when Google is your only channel
Les Binet and Peter Field analysed 996 IPA effectiveness campaigns spanning 1980 to 2016 and found that brands investing exclusively in activation (direct response, lead generation) grow initially but plateau. Their research shows a 90% average ROI uplift when brands move from performance-only to a brand-plus-performance approach.
Google Search Ads are pure activation. They harvest demand that already exists. They do nothing to create new demand. And the total demand in any market is finite.
If 500 people per month search for your service in your area, Google Ads can help you capture a share of those 500. It cannot make a 501st person search. The only way to grow beyond that ceiling is to ensure more people think of you when they eventually enter the market. That is what Facebook does.
Binet himself clarified in a 2025 IPA Effectiveness Conference presentation that the 60/40 rule is not universal. For new and small brands, the split might be 40/60 favouring activation because survival requires immediate revenue. But the direction of travel should always be toward increasing brand investment as the business stabilises.
For most Australian SMEs spending under $5,000 per month on ads, a practical starting split is 70% Google (activation) and 30% Facebook (brand building). As Google reaches its natural ceiling, shift incrementally toward 50/50.
Meta's algorithm now does what manual targeting used to
One reason Facebook Ads underperformed for small businesses historically was the complexity of audience targeting. You needed to build lookalike audiences, test interest groups, layer demographics. It was time-consuming and easy to get wrong.
That era is over.
Jon Loomer, one of the most respected Meta Ads practitioners, documented the shift in his own approach: Meta's Advantage+ Audience now prioritises people based on pixel activity, conversion history, and engagement signals. His testing shows Advantage+ Audience delivers a 28% lower cost per lead compared to traditional detailed targeting approaches.
The practical result: Facebook's algorithm is now better at finding your potential customers than you are at defining them manually. Feed it good creative and a clear conversion signal, and it will find the people most likely to respond.
This matters for the 95:5 framework. Meta's algorithm naturally balances between remarketing (the small group who already know you) and prospecting (the much larger group who don't). Even with broad targeting, it allocates budget to both audiences automatically.
For Australian service businesses, this means Facebook Ads is no longer the complex, unreliable channel it once was. The barrier to entry has dropped substantially.
The compounding effect when both platforms run together
Here is what happens in practice when an Australian service business runs both platforms:
- Google Ads captures in-market searches and generates leads immediately
- Facebook Ads runs brand awareness to a broader local audience
- Over 3-6 months, branded search volume on Google increases (people searching your business name directly)
- Google's cost per lead drops because branded searches convert at 2-3x the rate of generic searches
- Facebook's remarketing pool grows from Google traffic, improving Meta's algorithm performance
- The total addressable market expands because more people think of you when they enter the category
Practical allocation for an Australian service business
| Monthly budget | Google Ads | Facebook Ads | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000-$3,000 | 100% | 0% | Establish lead flow and learn economics first |
| $3,000-$5,000 | 70% | 30% | Add brand awareness once Google CPL is stable |
| $5,000-$8,000 | 60% | 40% | Scale Facebook as branded search grows |
| $8,000+ | 50% | 50% | Full coverage of both the 5% and the 95% |
- Google is producing leads at a cost you can sustain profitably
- You have at least 60-90 days of stable Google data
- Your constraint is market size (not enough searches) rather than campaign performance
- You have visual content or can produce it (photos, short video, before/after results)
What this means for how you measure success
The biggest mistake businesses make when adding Facebook is measuring it by the same direct-response metrics as Google. That is like judging a billboard by how many people walked into your shop while staring at it.
Watch for these signals that Facebook is working:
- Branded search volume increasing month over month in Google Search Console
- Google Ads cost per lead decreasing as brand familiarity reduces comparison shopping
- Direct traffic growing (people typing your URL directly)
- Shorter sales cycles because prospects arrive already trusting you
The decision framework
If you are an Australian service business asking "Google or Facebook?", here is the honest answer:
Google first if you need leads within 90 days, your service is something people actively search for, and your budget is under $5,000 per month. Build the foundation. Learn your numbers. Add Facebook once Google is profitable and your growth is constrained by how many people search for your category, not by your ability to convert them. Facebook expands the pool of future searchers by building mental availability with the 95% who are not ready today. Both together is where compounding happens. Neither platform reaches its full potential in isolation. Google alone hits a ceiling defined by existing search volume. Facebook alone struggles without a proven conversion path. Together, they cover the full buyer journey from first impression through to active search and decision.The question was never "which platform is better?" It was always "which 95% of my future customers am I currently invisible to?"
Further Reading
- The 95:5 Rule - Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's original research on in-market timing
- WordStream Google Ads Benchmarks 2026 - Industry-level cost and conversion data
- Jon Loomer: How My Approach to Meta Ads Changed - Advantage+ targeting evolution
- The 60/40 Rule in 2026 - Binet & Field's brand vs performance framework applied to current markets
- 2026 Trends for Google Ads and Meta Ads - Performance benchmarks and spend trends
Dream Outcome is an Australian digital marketing agency helping SMEs grow through Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Email Marketing.